


The Lion, the Nightmares, and the Blanket Fort

by tasteofsummersnow



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Goshiki is so adorable I’m pretty sure it’s illegal at this point, Kawanishi is a pining mess but can you blame him?, M/M, Nightmares and Insomnia, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, building blanket forts at 3am is good for the soul apparently, featuring a frankly ridiculous bedtime story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23328763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tasteofsummersnow/pseuds/tasteofsummersnow
Summary: “How exactly do you plan on helping me, Tsutomu?” It’s not like he can just spike volleyballs at Taichi’s insomnia until it leaves him alone.Tsutomu thinks about it for a moment. “We’re going to build a blanket fort!” he finally declares.---Or: the one in which Goshiki and Kawanishi build a blanket fort, Goshiki tells a bedtime story and Kawanishi finally gets some rest.
Relationships: Goshiki Tsutomu/Kawanishi Taichi
Comments: 25
Kudos: 166





	The Lion, the Nightmares, and the Blanket Fort

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of months ago I wrote a YahaShira fic ft. KawaGoshi as a side pairing. And then... things escalated. And now here we are, and I am more than willing to drag you all down into KawaGoshi hell with me ✨😇
> 
> Funny thing is... I wrote this fic duringa time in which my nightmares and insomnia were mostly leaving me alone. And as soon as I finished it, I was hit with a month straight of some of the worst nightmares & insomnia I ever experienced. So yeah, Kawanishi, love? I'm sorry for what I put you through, I know it _sucks_ (except i don't have an emotional support Goshiki, so you're lucky, really).
> 
> I had way too much fun writing the most precious, adorable Goshiki in this fic, so I hope you're gonna love him as much as Kawanishi and I do! Have fun!! ✨💙💙

Taichi wakes with a scream dying on his lips. He lays still, cold even under the blanket, as his eyes slowly adjust to the darkness.

He tries to concentrate on Tsutomu’s breathing coming from the bed on the other side of the room. But instead of the usual deep inhales and quiet snores, he is met only by silence. When he looks over to Tsutomu’s bed, he finds him sitting up.

“Kawanishi-senpai, are you okay?” he whispers, but in the quiet of the night it sounds deafening.

Is he okay? 

It’s the fifth time in a week he wakes up in the dead of the night because the nightmares won’t leave him alone. If they weren’t still clasping the blanket so tightly, his hands would be shaking. And if the previous nights are anything to go by, going back to sleep isn’t an option now. Instead, he’ll just lie awake, stare at the ceiling, listen to Tsutomu’s breathing and try to keep his thoughts at bay. 

So, no, he is not okay. 

But he is used to it. Used to the nightmares. Used to the sleepless nights. Used to the headaches that they yield. Used to dragging himself out of bed and to morning practice alongside Tsutomu’s cheery chattering. Used to the worried looks Kenjirou will shoot him. Used to Washijou-sensei’s yelling because the lack of sleep makes him slow on his feet and even slower in his thinking. And most of all, he’s used to doing this over and over again.

So, he tells Tsutomu: “I’m fine. Go back to sleep. Sorry if I woke you.” At least one of them should arrive to practice well rested.

Tsutomu hesitates. “Are you sure…?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Just go back to sleep,” Taichi replies a bit sharper than he intended. Guilt flashes over him instantly. The tiredness must really be taking a toll on him if he’s talking to Tsutomu like that. Just another thought that will haunt him while he’s staring at the ceiling later. Amazing.

For a long moment, it is completely and utterly quiet in their room. Taichi turns so he is facing the wall but he can still feel Tsutomu’s eyes on him. 

When the feeling doesn’t stop even after Taichi has counted to 20, he turns back around with a sigh. Tsutomu is indeed still looking at him and if the room wasn’t so dark, Taichi could probably see worry in his eyes. “Look,” he tries again, “I’m okay, really. I’m used to this. I know how to handle it.”

“What do you mean, you’re used to this, senpai?” Tsutomu asks and Taichi can almost hear him frowning.

He sighs again. “You know, the not sleeping. The nightmares. All that. Happens regularly, so it’s fine, really…”

The blanket on Tsutomu’s bed rustles as he sits up even straighter. “It… does? But… if this happens regularly… how come I’ve never noticed? You screamed tonight, so if you have nightmares often, how come I never woke up…?” he sounds confused, but there is something else in his voice, too, that Taichi can’t quite decipher.

His brain feels too foggy to worry about it though, so instead, he huffs out a soft laugh. “You’re a ridiculously deep sleeper, Tsutomu. You didn’t wake up when Tendou-san and Yamagata-san drew on your face last training camp, and not even when they started piling toilet paper rolls on you. They even offered to pay Kenjirou and me 1000 yen if we could kiss you on your forehead without waking you up.” 

“What?!?” Tsutomu squawks. 

“We didn’t, obviously,” he adds. 

Taichi doesn’t tell him that he had been tempted to do it, 1000 yen or not, because Tsutomu looked adorable when he was sleeping, his hair a mess and his nose scrunched up in concentration, like he was trying his hardest to become the best even in his dreams.

“Anyways, I don’t think you would have woken up, even if we did. So yeah, if you can sleep through Tendou-san cackling like a maniac next to you, there is probably little that could wake you. But that’s good, I guess? I’m glad I don’t usually wake you.”

“You should, though!” Tsutomu protests a bit too loudly, and then immediately clasps a hand over his mouth as if that could take back the sound of his voice.

They listen for a while, but there is no sound from the rooms next to theirs. Tsutomu exhales loudly, then he turns to Taichi again. “You should wake me,” he insists again, his voice reproachful.

“What? No, you need to sleep. It’s bad enough I mess up during practice and school because insomnia turns me into a zombie. Why would I do that to you, too?”

“Because… because…” Tsutomu flounders before finally setting on a firm “just _because_ ”.

Taichi chuckles. “Tsutomu…”

“No, Kawanishi-senpai, you don’t understand! You’re my friend and I want to help you!” Taichi is almost certain that Tsutomu is pouting right now, even if he can’t tell in the darkness of their room. Still, he is glad that the lights are off because his face suddenly feels uncomfortably hot.

“And I appreciate that, Tsutomu, but how exactly do you plan on helping me?” It’s not like he can just spike volleyballs at Taichi’s insomnia until it leaves him alone. 

Tsutomu thinks about it for a moment. “We’re going to build a blanket fort!” he finally declares.

Taichi huffs out a confused laugh. “We’re… what?”

“A blanket fort! I used to make them for my siblings when they couldn’t sleep! We would build a fort and then we’d cudd… I mean then I… I would tell them a story or something…”

Taichi is tired but he’s not tired enough to miss that slip up. His ears are burning. He presses his eyes closed to get rid of the thought of Tsutomu cuddling up to him. 

“Or something,” he repeats and is almost proud of how even his voice sounds.

“Please, senpai, it’s fun, I promise!!” Somehow, Tsutomu manages to have the same amount of enthusiasm at 3am that he’d have at 3pm. Not that Taichi is surprised. Tsutomu naturally wakes up at six in the morning, no alarm clock needed, and is chipper from the get go, when everyone else is still mostly communicating through tired grunts.

Taichi takes a second to think about it, but he knows that he could never say no to Tsutomu anyway, and it definitely beats staring at the ceiling for the rest of the night, so he sits up. “I guess it’s worth a try…”

“Yes!!! It’s going to be great, you’ll see!!!” 

“Shhhh!” Taichi reminds him urgently because he doubts that the guys living next door would be quite as enthusiastic as Tsutomu about being awake at three in the morning, but he can’t help the smile playing on his lips. Tsutomu’s excitement is contagious. 

“Sorry!!” Tsutomu whispers back, but that doesn’t keep him from bouncing on the balls of his feet as soon as he is out of bed.

Taichi takes a bit longer, his limbs heavy and his head aching. He makes his way over to his desk and turns on the desk lamp.

He blinks as his eyes adjust to the light. Tsutomu has stopped mid-bounce, his eyes squeezed shut, the left one opening carefully to check the brightness of the light only to close again immediately, his hair an absolute mess. 

He has never looked cuter.

Taichi looks away before he starts blushing again. “So, how are we doing this?”

And thus, the building of the fort begins.

Under Tsutomu’s hushed instructions, they carefully pull their mattresses to the floor in the middle of the room. Their desk chairs and laundry hampers become the pillars. Their blankets, pillows and Taichi’s plush donkey land on the mattresses.

Tsutomu wants to make the ceiling of their fort out of the reserve duvet covers they have in their closet but when he opens it, he finds only one instead of the two he needs.

“Your second one is in the laundry,” Taichi reminds him. “You lay down on it after your cross-country run in PE, remember? Muddy shoes and all.”

“Riiiight…”, Tsutomu agrees, and then almost gives Taichi a heart attack when he asks: “You’re okay with sharing a blanket, right, senpai?”

“Sure,” Taichi rasps.

“Coolio, so, let me just…” He makes the ceiling out of Taichi’s blanket and the spare duvet cover, tying them together with some rubber bands from his rubber band ball and securing them on the chairs with the help of some of their heavier school books. (“Never thought my French book would actually be good for something!”)

When he’s done, he takes a step back and turns towards Taichi. “May I present, drumroll please, The Swans’ Nest!” Tsutomu announces with the proudest smile on his face.

Taichi is internally melting. “Not bad,” he admits with a yawn to hide his smile.

“Not bad? It’s the coolest-“, but before Tsutomu can go on with his rant, Taichi tugs him by his pajama sleeves and drags him into the fort.

It’s cozy. The light from the desk lamp filtering through the purple duvet covers is warm, but not too bright, the ceiling is low but it doesn’t matter when they’re lying down.

The mattresses are pushed together and Taichi can feel the warmth Tsutomu is radiating.

“Here,” Tsutomu says, throwing his blanket over the two of them.

It smells like him.

“So, what do you think, senpai?” Tsutomu asks softly.

Taichi turns around to face him. 

They’re close. 

So close.

Taichi forgets how to breathe.

Tsutomu’s hair looks even softer up close. His dark eyes sparkle with excitement. His eyelashes cast long shadows in the soft light. There’s a pimple on his chin and two more just above his left eyebrow, and a handful of freckles on his nose. His smile holds all the warmth in the world.

“Perfect,” Taichi whispers.

Tsutomu’s eyes widen. He sucks in a shuddering breath. For a second, his eyes flicker down to Taichi’s lips. Then, he clears his throat and turns from his side to his back. “I… uh… I think I promised you a story?”

“Or something,” Taichi teases, now that he can breathe normally again. He firmly tells the part of his brain that keeps insisting Tsutomu wanted to kiss him just there to shut up and stop hallucinating just because it’s tired.

“Okay, so… once upon a time there was… a lion,” Tsutomu begins and then pauses with a frown.

“Is that the whole story?” Taichi asks, mischief in his voice, even as he yawns again.

“Of course not! I just need to think for a second… Once upon a time there was a lion and he wanted to become the king of all animals!”

Taichi chuckles but motions for Tsutomu to go on.

“He wanted to become the king of all animals but he didn’t really know how to go about it, so he left his family and his village and went looking for the wise… rat-sensei, who was known throughout the land for helping those he deemed worthy. At first, the rat-sensei laughed at the lion. ‘In my days, we would have eaten lions like you for breakfast!’” For the last part he does a pretty horrible imitation of Washijou-sensei’s voice. 

Taichi snorts. What would their coach say if he ever found out that Tsutomu used him as inspiration for an evil rat? And that’s when it dawns on him. “Wait, the lion’s name wouldn’t happen to be Tsutomu now, would it?”

“… Maybe”, Tsutomu admits with a pout.

“So, a lion cub then”, Taichi says, nodding sagely until Tsutomu’s offended gasp makes him laugh.

“He’s a lion and he’s the coolest lion ever!” Tsutomu insists.

“Never said he wasn’t,” Taichi mumbles with a yawn and snuggles even deeper into the blanket, breathing in Tsutomu’s scent. “How does the story continue?”

“Right, so… he asked the rat-sensei for help, but the rat-sensei only laughed at him. He laughed and laughed and pointed out all the lion’s flaws, but the lion persevered. And finally, the rat-sensei acknowledged the lion’s determination and explained that there was only one way to become the king of all animals: he had to wander along the Path of the Swan, and fulfill the tasks the Seven Wardens of the path posed him and learn their lessons.”

“That… sounds like an unnecessarily complicated way to determine the new ruler,” Taichi mused. “What if someone completes the tasks a day after the previous animal? Will the first one only rule for one day or-“

“Senpai,” Tsutomu interrupts him, “you think too much. That’s probably why you can’t sleep. Just enjoy the story, yeah?”

Taichi huffs out a laugh. Tsutomu isn’t wrong. “Okay.”

“Good! And so, the lion wandered along the Path of the Swan until he met the first warden. He was…”

Taichi leans back against his pillow, his eyes half-closed and listens as Tsutomu tells him the adventures of lion-Tsutomu. 

First, he has to scale a mountain, on the top of which the falcon-warden awaits. He calls him “bro”, claps him on the shoulder too hard, and teaches him how to have everyone’s backs. 

Taichi teases Tsutomu a bit for the uncreative choice of animal but even he has to admit that it actually suits Yamagata-senpai.

After that, a very grumpy bunny-warden calls him out for being late, and then teaches him how to support others without stepping into the limelight. It’s a hard lesson for the lion, and the bunny-warden is a strict teacher but when he is finally satisfied with the lion’s performance, he sends him off with a grumbled “yeah, yeah, well done, off you go!”

“So you _do_ know that deep down Kenjirou is actually a softie?” Taichi mumbles into his pillow.

“Don’t let him hear you say that, senpai, he’ll have your head.” Tsutomu chuckles and Taichi just about musters the energy to look up at him for that. 

The retort that Tsutomu is the one who needs to be careful because Kenjirou would most likely not appreciate being portrayed as an angry bunny, gets stuck in his throat, when he is faced with the fondest expression he has ever seen on Tsutomu’s face, and Taichi’s chest suddenly feels too tight.

He quickly closes his eyes, and turns onto his stomach for good measure. Looking at Tsutomu in this light is apparently dangerous. “Go on”, he mutters, his voice shaky even to his own ears.

Where is that aloof serenity he’s so well known for when he needs it?

It’s too early in the morning for this kind of question, though, so he just takes a deep breath and ignores the little voice telling him Tsutomu melted it away months ago. 

Tsutomu himself doesn’t seem to notice Taichi’s internal turmoil. Instead, he tells him that, next, the lion finds the cackling parrot-warden in the deepest corner of a rainforest, and is taught the importance of being able to laugh at his own mistakes and enjoy life to the fullest.

As the story goes on, Taichi’s eyelids become heavier and heavier, and once the lion reaches the bear-warden, he just closes them. Instead of listening to Tsutomu’s words, he listens to his voice. It is warm, even as he whispers, bringing his story to life. Taichi can hear the smile in his voice.

How adorable.

Taichi falls asleep with a smile of his own blossoming on his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Kawanishi has it _bad_ , doesn't he?
> 
> I'm hoping that maybe one day, I can write a sequel for this fic ~~because I want to see Kawanishi internally screaming the first time Goshiki calls him by his first name~~ ✨✌
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, if you find any mistakes you're more than welcome to point them out, English isn't my first language and I still have A Lot of learning to do~


End file.
